Swedish Death Metal
The buzzsaw guitar sound of Stockholm — one studio, one pedal setting, a hundred records.
What you're really asking
You're asking about a guitar tone as much as a genre. Stockholm death metal is the Boss HM-2 pedal with every knob on full, recorded at one studio by one engineer — a sound so specific that collectors buy records on the strength of the credits alone.
Where it sits
It starts with Nihilist, teenagers trading demo tapes out of Stockholm suburbs in 1987-88, who split and became Entombed. Tomas Skogsberg's Sunlight Studio recorded them, then everyone who sounded like them: Left Hand Path in 1990 set the template, and within two years Dismember, Grave and Unleashed had each cut their own classic through the same desk.
Earache and Nuclear Blast carried it worldwide.
The scene
Who: Entombed and Dismember as the twin peaks, Skogsberg behind the desk, Nicke Andersson writing the riffs. What: death metal with punk bones — d-beat drive under the growl, melody allowed in.
How it works: the chainsaw tone gets a record in; a Sunlight Studio credit on the sleeve is the scene's stamp.
The leading records
Entombed
Left Hand Path
1990
The template — the first riff is the whole scene in ten seconds.
Dismember
Like An Ever Flowing Stream
1991
The other pillar; leads with actual songs under the chainsaw.
Grave
Into The Grave
1991
Slower, uglier, heavier — the low end of the Stockholm sound.
Unleashed
Where No Life Dwells
1991
Viking themes before that was a genre; the most direct of the four.
Carnage
Dark Recollections
1990
Half of Dismember in embryo — one album and gone, heavily dug.
Nihilist
1987-1989
1990
The demo compilation where all of it starts; the scene's birth certificate.
Oddballs
Keep digging
- Where did the Gothenburg melodic sound split off?
- What is the Boss HM-2 and why does it matter?
- Sunlight Studio versus Morrisound — the two desks of death metal